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Chapter 5 - The social origins of Dutch mothers’ gender values and ideal family life 
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unknown. This is remarkable, since schooling is generally viewed as an important 
phase for socializing young people in particular skills and values in society 
(Bourdieu, 1984; Nagel and Ganzeboom, 2002). 
Furthermore, it is widely recognised that peer relationships and group 
pressures affect the emotional adjustment, school achievement, and risk-taking 
behaviour of adolescents (Biddle, Bank and Marlin, 1980; Carter et al., 2003; 
Grusec and Hastings, 2007; Windle, 1994). Nonetheless, few studies focus on the 
social support among adult peer groups. And studies that do are mostly related to 
the influence of the general behaviour of people ‘out there’ in mother’s social 
environment (Blaffer Hrdy, 2000; Woittiez and Kapteyn, 1986) or to the impact 
of more distant ‘role models’ (Sealy and Singh, 2009). 
The perceived social support investigated in this study is the stimulation 
towards mothers fulfilling their potential at work. In other words, the focus is 
upon her professional choice and career ambitions, which does necessarily mean 
vertical mobility. Subsequently, if mothers perceive that they have been 
supported in their professional choice by teachers, and in their careers by 
significant others, it is assumed that they will endorse more egalitarian values and 
family life ideals. 
Hypotheses 
This chapter specifically addresses the following hypotheses: 
1:   A mother’s personal ideal family life is based on her general gender 
values. 
2:   A mother’s gender values and ideal family life are influenced by parental 
socialization during childhood.  
3:   A mother endorses more egalitarian gender values and a more 
egalitarian ideal family life if she perceived support from teachers at 
secondary school in her professional choice. 
4:   A mother endorses more egalitarian gender values and a more 
egalitarian ideal family life if she perceived the career support from 
significant others. 
5.7 Research 
method 
The hypotheses are tested by analysing data from a survey among a representative 
sample of Dutch mothers. These data stem from the Longitudinal Internet Studies 
for the Social Sciences (LISS) panel, administered by CentERdata of Tilburg 
University. The LISS panel is a representative sample of the Dutch population, 
who participate in paid monthly internet surveys. The panel is based on a true 
probability sample of households drawn from the population register. Households 

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Socialized Choices - Labour Market Behaviour of Dutch Mothers 
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that could not otherwise participate were provided with a computer and an 
Internet connection. A longitudinal survey is fielded in the panel every year, 
covering a large variety of domains, including work, education, income, housing, 
use of time, political views, values and personality. Additionally, each month, the 
respondents receive a different questionnaire on a particular subject.  
For the analyses, a special questionnaire was completed in November 2010 by 
mothers with at least one child aged 12 years or under still living at home. The 
questionnaire was sent to 1,374 mothers; 948 completed forms were returned, 
signalling a response rate of 69%. The questionnaire included 40 questions 
covering the respondents’ parental background, their attitudes towards work and 
the influence of their social environment. In addition, I use several questions from 
the standard LISS-questionnaires ‘Politics and Values’ and ‘Work and 
Schooling’, which were also presented to the sample in November 2010. 
Regression and path analyses 
The main dependent variable of the theoretical model is ideal family life. 
Nonetheless, the advantage of a structural path model is that it enables us to 
examine the relationship between two or more dependent variables and several 
independent variables in one regression analysis (Amos™ 19, IBM SPSS®). 
Moreover, it allows the estimation of the direct as well as the indirect effects of 
the independent variables. Therefore, general gender values are included as an 
independent and dependent variable-.  I firstly performed separate regression 
analyses for general gender values (OLS) and for ideal family life a nominal 
regression analysis (see appendix 3). The most non-significant variables were 
step-wise removed from the analysis untill only the almost significant variables 
(p= <0.1) were left. Within the linear regression analyses I also tested for 
multicollinearity, and based on the values (Vif) I could accept the variables. The 
almost significant variables from the separate regressions were included in the 
structural path analysis. In this chapter, only the significant estimates of the path 
models are shown. The path analysis is based on 935 cases. Based on the Bollen-
stine bootstrap (p =.001), the model is accepted (Arbuckle, 2010). 
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General gender values  
The first dependent variable is a scale for a mother’s general gender values. The 
questions used for this variable are derived from the standard LISS-questionnaire 
‘Politics and Values’ and are similar to questions in the European Values Studies 
(2009). I constructed a scale based on seven statements regarding the preferred 
role of mothers and fathers, such as “a child that is not yet attending school is 
likely to suffer the consequences if his or her mother has a job” and “the father 
                                                           
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   Bollen-stine bootstrap is a measure for the goodness-of-fit in case of non-normal data for a path 
model. 
 

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